The Kingdom of Speech

The maestro storyteller and reporter provocatively argues that what we think we know about speech and human evolution is wrong. From Alfred Russel Wallace, the Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later renounced it, and through the controversial work of modern-day anthropologist Daniel Everett, who defies the current wisdom that language is hard-wired in humans, Wolfe examines the solemn, long-faced, laugh-out-loud zig-zags of Darwinism, old and Neo, and finds it irrelevant here in this great read.

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For a book about language, the anonymous reviewer of Library Journal should learn how to write. In their excerpt, there are six sentences in a row that start with a subordinate clause. That's just lazy writing. Fortunately, I think Wolfe's writing will be much better.

A brief book that is not so much about Speech as it is about toppling false prophets. We learn a great deal about the intrigue that made Darwin the historic personality he is while keeping the lowly “fly catcher” Wallace in semi-obscurity. One hundred fifty years later, a somewhat parallel story develops between Noam Chomsky, the false prophet of speech evolution and Daniel Everett, the new “fly catcher” that (unlike Wallace) opposes the false prophet and begins the process of toppling him. Chomsky’s dogma captured on tens of thousands of pages or more and his cultural clout still holds as of today due to an army of followers built over decades and dependent on this dogma. But the damage has been done: Everett with one single study on the Piraha people has invalidated Chomsky’s conclusions.

Tom Wolfe’s irony cuts merciless into the dearest beliefs of the Evolutionary myth:

We learn about the parallels between the evolution myth and Native American Creation myths. Yes, Evolution is nothing more than a Creation myth.
“…the littlest creature (or “four or five” of them)…” points out the absurdity of this claim. Why one? Why four or five? Why make this utterly unsupported claim?
Evolution is Cosmogony myth and not Science as the theory fails all five tests for scientific hypothesis: Observed? Replicated? Falsifiable? Predictive power? Illuminates other areas of science? “In the case of Evolution…well…no…no…no…no…and no”.
Darwin’s “Just So Stories”, and “my dog” argument, especially in “The Descent of Man”.
Dobzhansky’s synthesis of moribund Evolution theory with Genetics to revive the former, and his too categorical claim that “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution”.
Chomsky’s 2014 statement that “The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma” after decades of “knowing” language down to the math.
Language is important of course, and perhaps even “the most powerful tool invented by people, not innate and not biologically evolved” as the author concludes, but more important Take-Aways are the doubts cast on the very sacred and very inflexible, and ultimately very unscientific beliefs of the Evolution supporters. Furthermore, the amount of supporting literature and time passage have built an imposing structure around the concept of Evolution, but this structure rests on a very flimsy base at best and will likely come crumbling down sooner or later – the higher the structure, the more spectacular its demise.

The aging, yet still dapper Duke of New Journalism has apparently lost his in mind in this new non-fiction book. I have no idea what prompted Tom Wolfe, the celebrated, if divisive, author of "The Right Stuff" and "The Bonfire of the Vanities," to write this tirade against Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky. Who thinks, hey, that Darwin needs to be taken down a peg? Chomsky, maybe, but I think his linguistic theories, which Wolfe assaults, are hardly known out of a small coterie. He's better known for his politics, but, again, he's not a household name. Language is the common theme and Wolfe gleefully lambastes evolutionists and linguistics failure to offer up a cohesive theory. What could be considered wide-ranging to me seems like rambling and a complete lack of focus. Again, I haven't a clue what possessed him to take up his literary cudgel, but it makes him seem shrill, irrelevant, and dangerously out of touch. Whom does he imagine his audience is? I've liked some of Wolfe's work in the past, but this is a disaster.